NCJ Number
185751
Editor(s)
Jeffrey A. Sluka
Date Published
2000
Length
270 pages
Annotation
This volume focuses specifically on the anthropology of state terror by bringing together an international group of anthropologists who have done extensive research in countries marked by extreme forms of state violence and who have studied state terror from the perspectives of both victims and survivors.
Abstract
The volume contains eight case studies from seven countries--Spain, India (Punjab and Kashmir), Argentina, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Indonesia, and the Philippines--to demonstrate the cultural complexities and ambiguities of terror when viewed at the local level and from the point of view of participants. Contributors to the volume deal with such topics as the role of Loyalist death squads in the culture of terror in Northern Ireland, the three-tier mechanism of state terror in Indonesia, the complex role of religion in violence by the state and insurgents in Punjab and Kashmir, and ways in which "disappearances" are used to destabilize and demoralize opponents of the state. Implications of death squads and dilemmas for the anthropology of violence are discussed. References, notes, and photographs